IRAQNAM REVISISTED

IRAQNAM REVISITED

How in the world did we get to this point? The decisions of stupidity are legion, nothing new: not enough troops, disbanding the Iraqi Army, a strategy of "whack a mole" which has been abysmal. As I heard last week that some young Captain in Iraq said, "Our strategy is to send a few soldiers out in a hum V to get shot at or blown up." Now that's a strategy.

And, we continue to present rosy reports, Casey, the head guy in Iraq, who is retiring, echoed it again. "By the summer of 08, troops might be leaving. What is going on with this? I think he was relieved anyway in a bit of strategy even if we don't know what it is--make a few changes to make it look like we're doing something and see what happens.

THE DECISIONS AREN'T OURS TO MAKE

What amazes me is that we continue to act like we can arbitrarily make decisions. HELLO! Does anybody remember that Iraq has a duly elected government. The Premier is being called upon to get tough. Oh yeah, this will work; get tough with the very guy who is the driver behind him being in office. You have got to be kidding me. Get this, there are no less than 23 militias in Iraq and the Premier is going to disband them. PLEASE! GIVE ME A BREAK!

OUR LEADER HAS SPOKEN


The President has said we have three options: (1)do what we are doing, (2) cut a chogie (NC expression for get the hell out) out of Iraq, or (3)the surge. No, we have four and here is the plan that will work.

SPECIAL FORCES

Plan to stay in Iraq as long as it takes or somewhere close, 50-75,000 Special Forces soldiers who can fight the militias or keep the people from killing each other and train those who honestly might be willing to be trained. Simplistic. No, what people in Congress or even the military don't want to admit is that the Special Forces are trained for this sort of mission--a guerrilla war and they love it.

What we learned from Vietnam has totally escaped us and the military "brass" has to take a hit for this: leave guerrilla fighting to the Special Forces. The main Army should concentrate on big wars like WW II, to be fought for survival. Us Vietnam vets know the scenario. Vietnam began its eventual decline when we introduced conventional soldiers: young soldiers who are just bodies, trained as best we could but reluctant at best. We did a good job, carried the fight to the enemy but at the end of the day, we couldn't win it. In Iraq, conventional soldiers, as good as they are, are not going to win it either.

FANATICISM

We cannot beat fanatics, those who kill themselves, their families, their countrymen. We cannot beat young Arab men who have joined the fight because they have no future, no prospects and they are imbued with a religious fanaticism that reasonable people simply cannot fathom, i. e., 73 virgins waiting for them in paradise. Fantasy in a normal male is a powerful thing and in a sexually repressed male like these kids in the militias in Iraq, it is multiplied by the scores.

A TIME TABLE

So, how long will it take to get us to the point we can do this? Six months to a year, conventional soldiers can be out of Iraq and the Special Forces can be in place. What's happened to us in Iraq and Baghdad in particular is that we have given over the streets to the thugs, meaning the militias. They are unimpressed with our bravado, great equipment and fire power. They know they have us by the gonads. They are tribalists and we are trying to win their hearts and minds. Forget it! We can win the hearts and minds of a few civilians but for those taking the fight to us, we cannot.

We have got to get over ourselves. The militias/insurgents/terrorists are salvages. When I read the accounts of the killing of innocent Iraqis, I am amazed at what they will do to the poor civilians: students, kids. They don't care and are brutal to the max.

We slow this down by a highly trained force of Special Forces soldiers who understand counter insurgency and can take the fight to the enemy while keeping a low profile in training the Iraqis and winning some confidence of the people. This is a strategy and will work--two years. kt